Using the latest cutting-edge technology, researchers from the Solstice Project have gained a greater understanding of how the residents of Chaco Canyon lived and viewed their world.

As part of SAR’s Creative Thought Forum, series speakers Anna Sofaer, Richard Friedman and Robert Weiner gave a recent radio interview on The Radio Café, sharing how use of LiDAR (“Light Detection And Ranging” – aerial LASER scanning technology) and 3D modeling has revealed evidence of roads and structures throughout the Four-Corners area.

In 1977, Archeoastronomer and Solstice Project founder Anna Sofaer photographed a shaft of light that went straight through a work of spiral rock art in Chaco. She noticed this “Sun Dagger” was connected to the summer solstice, prompting the renewed perspective that the ruins around Chaco contained astronomical sites organized around solar and lunar cycles.

More recent research revealed patterns of straight, engineered roads emanating for miles from Pueblo Bonito, the main Great House in the canyon, to prominent landscape features. Through LiDAR, Sofaer, Friedman, and Weiner have also detected other great houses and road systems similar to Pueblo Bonito up to 300 miles away.

How was all this created? It is still a mystery. Comments Sofaer in the interview:

How did [the Chacoans] relate across a region twice the size of Ireland?…Three-hundred miles from each other, all that coordination—roads standardized and 30-feet wide, straight, all going to special sites in the landscape—this is what we want to bring out: how amazingly coordinated it was, without armies, without beasts of burden, and—we think—without writing and math. What was the communication? Listen to the full interview online…

SAR’s Creative Thought Forum brings innovative thinkers to Santa Fe to discuss topics of broad social concern. This year, the series asks how traditional practices interact with innovative thinking and emerging technology. The five-part series includes five significant scholars whose approaches, research, and projects examine this intersection.

Stay up to date with all of SAR’s ongoing programs, sign up for our monthly E-News and receive updates right to your inbox! SIGN UP HERE

Upcoming Events

Tickets for this lecture are sold-out. If you would like to be added to the waitlist or have further questions please click here to email Meredith Davidson Creative Thought Forum lectures are free for SAR[...]

The Friday following the lecture, SAR hosts an informal salon discussion with Anna Sofaer. The salon is an opportunity for a conversation-style gathering with the speaker and provides a deeper exploration of the lecture topics.[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

On a recent Saturday afternoon, SAR’s director of public programs and communications spoke with local radio host, Richard Eeds, for Coffee and Culture. The two discussed the Indian Arts Research Center collection tours, the history of the organization, and the upcoming Creative Thought Forum programs including the sold-out lecture with archaeoastronomer Anna Sofaer scheduled for January 24, 2019.

Upcoming Events

Tickets for this lecture are sold-out. If you would like to be added to the waitlist or have further questions please click here to email Meredith Davidson Creative Thought Forum lectures are free for SAR[...]

The Friday following the lecture, SAR hosts an informal salon discussion with Anna Sofaer. The salon is an opportunity for a conversation-style gathering with the speaker and provides a deeper exploration of the lecture topics.[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

Brian Vallo, four-year director of the Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) at the School for Advanced Research resigned on Friday January 4, 2019. Starting immediately, Vallo will assume the role of Acoma Pueblo’s governor. Upon his resignation, Vallo shared,

“I am humbled by this great honor to serve my community as Governor, the responsibility is tremendous and the opportunities equally great. I have enjoyed working with such an amazing and competent staff to enhance signature programming and expand IARC’s capacity to make an even greater impact to programs and new initiatives. This work has, and will continue to set new standards for collaboration, education, community engagement, and collections stewardship. SAR must take great pride in the positive impact of its initiatives to further advance the field of museology and capacity-building among tribal communities. I have every confidence the IARC and SAR will continue to lead important and impactful initiatives.”

As the director of the IARC at SAR, Vallo led a significant and nationally-recognized initiative on proper stewardship of Native American collections by spearheading the development and 2016 publication of a protocol for how source communities and collecting institutions can work together, known as the Guidelines for Collaboration. Vallo advised museum curators and exhibition-design teams on the implementation of the Guidelines, including recent work with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Field Museum in Chicago. Under his guidance, the IARC collections grew to over 12,000 works of primarily Southwestern Native American art that span the sixth century to the present and SAR’s Native American artist fellowship program continued to thrive. In his new role as the Governor of Acoma Pueblo, Vallo will continue to be influential in the emerging dialogue concerning source communities and collecting institutions. SAR President, Michael F. Brown, noted,

Michael F. Brown, President, School for Advanced Research

“It has been an honor to work with Brian Vallo over his time at SAR. Through his steadfast dedication to the IARC and the collections we steward, we have become a leader in best practices for collecting institutions that care for Native American art. He and his staff have built important relationships with source communities, with museums around the world, and with important contemporary Native American artists. This foundation ensures that the IARC will continue to expand and grow. Brian’s role as Acoma Governor is an exciting new step for him, and we look forward to opportunities to work with Brian within his new role.”

Upcoming Events

Tickets for this lecture are sold-out. If you would like to be added to the waitlist or have further questions please click here to email Meredith Davidson Creative Thought Forum lectures are free for SAR[...]

The Friday following the lecture, SAR hosts an informal salon discussion with Anna Sofaer. The salon is an opportunity for a conversation-style gathering with the speaker and provides a deeper exploration of the lecture topics.[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

I’m interested in characters that are complex, that sometimes do bad things, but still there is all kinds of love there.

Casandra Lopez

This week, the Washington nonprofit, Artist Trust, announced Casandra Lopez, SAR’s 2013 Indigenous Writer-in-Residence, as the recipient of the 2018 James W. Ray Venture Project award. Given to two individuals annually, the award honors creatives who the Trust believes demonstrate exceptional originality. Read the full press release here.

Lopez (Cahuilla/Tongva/Luiseño/Chicana) blends explorations of loss, grief, and trauma in her works of fiction and poetry. In 2010, Lopez lost her brother to gun violence; while at SAR she developed work pulling from this loss and her connections to the community that have developed out of the experience.

Much of this work has become part of her current publications: Where the Bullet Breaks, (University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2014) and Brother Bullet(University of Arizona Press, forthcoming). Today, Lopez continues to craft her own work while she also teaches on the Lummi reservation at Northwest Indian College.

For nearly a decade, SAR’s Indigenous Writer-in-Residence program has supported authors who explore personal memoirs, works of fiction, and other creative endeavors. The program, generously supported by the Lannan Foundation, provides writers-in-residence with the time and space needed to immerse themselves in the process of creating new narratives

As part of Lopez’s residency with SAR, she organized a writer workshop with the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) creative writing department director, Evelina Zuni Lucero. The event explored where stories come from and how the creative process can be driven by personal inquiry and discovery. The two authors shared reflections on the workshop and writing process in a public forum in 2013. As Lucero notes about the development of stories, “They don’t just fall down on the page by some miracle.” Hear Casandra Lopez read from her work-in-process at SAR and discuss the story process with Evelina Zuni Lucero:

Upcoming Events

Tickets for this lecture are sold-out. If you would like to be added to the waitlist or have further questions please click here to email Meredith Davidson Creative Thought Forum lectures are free for SAR[...]

The Friday following the lecture, SAR hosts an informal salon discussion with Anna Sofaer. The salon is an opportunity for a conversation-style gathering with the speaker and provides a deeper exploration of the lecture topics.[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

Gordon Lee Johnson writes primarily to tell the stories of today’s California Indian, but he is also interested in addressing the universal human condition.

Featured in a recent Los Angeles Times article on California Native American artists and the struggle to preserve their culture in the modern world, Johnson says in the piece that he writes to reflect a sense of home to Native readers, and he hopes they feel more alive after reading his work.

Gordon Lee Johnson, SAR 2017 Indigenous Writer in Residence.

The author of two books—Fast Cars and Frybread: Reports From the Rez and Bird Songs Don’t Life: Writings From the Rez—the Cahuilla and Cupeño novelist and essayist from the Pala reservation in northern San Diego County was the recipient of SAR’s Indigenous Writer in Residence Fellowship in 2017. The purpose of the fellowship is to advance the work of an indigenous writer by supporting an author’s exploration of new avenues of creativity.

A former news columnist and feature writer, Johnson left journalism 10 years ago to focus on fiction and is currently working on a mystery novel set on the rez. Yet even with his focus on modern Native life in California, Johnson hasn’t forgotten his traditions, cultural identity and the issue of who defines the Native American experience. He states in the Times article:

Upcoming Events

Tickets for this lecture are sold-out. If you would like to be added to the waitlist or have further questions please click here to email Meredith Davidson Creative Thought Forum lectures are free for SAR[...]

The Friday following the lecture, SAR hosts an informal salon discussion with Anna Sofaer. The salon is an opportunity for a conversation-style gathering with the speaker and provides a deeper exploration of the lecture topics.[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

A sunray perfectly pierces a spiral rock formation marking the summer solstice; a shadow on a long South wall calls in the equinox. These astronomical alignments, embedded in the structures and roads across the Chaco Canyon region, provide insights into the pre-Colombian Puebloan culture.

In 1977, Anna Sofaer rediscovered the “Sun Dagger” in Chaco Canyon, an astronomical site marking solar and lunar cycles with light patterns on a spiral rock carving. Through her non-profit Solstice Project, she has dedicated herself to collaborative research and education on the Chaco culture with archaeological, Puebloan, and other consultants. This included production of the PBS film, The Mystery of Chaco Canyon, narrated by Robert Redford, and of a collection of research papers, Chaco Astronomy. Richard Friedman, expert in Geographic Information Systems at San Juan College, gained extensive knowledge of Chacoan sites by integrating new aerial technologies with traditional ground surveying methods. Robert Weiner, graduate of Brown University and current PhD student at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has focused his research on Chacoan trade with Mesoamerica and Chacoan “roads.” The Solstice Project (solsticeproject.org) is taking archaeological inquiries to the cutting edge. Using LiDAR (“Light Detection And Ranging” – aerial LASER scanning technology) and 3D modeling, its research is breaking new ground, understanding how the Chacoans constructed the region and viewed their world.

In their January 2019 talk, Sofaer, Friedman, and Weiner will show how Chaco “roads” create a fascinating pattern of cosmography. These elaborate pathways often connect with prominent features of the natural landscape and astronomical directions. They will share how their use of new technologies has enabled precise recording of these engineered features, their length, width, depth, and cross-sectional profiles. As they note in a 2017 publication:

Roads have received less attention than other topics within Chaco research due to several factors: their ephemeral surface expressions requiring specialized training for their identification, remote locations, and frequent extension beyond the boundaries of site-based archaeological studies. The potential for detecting Chaco roads diminishes each passing year, as sedimentation, erosion, deposition, and the increased encroachment of modern society, including energy development, are rapidly removing the visible traces of these cultural resources…. [this effort] contribute[s] to understanding and managing these under studied but once elaborately created and highly valued features of the ancient peoples of the American Southwest. (Society for American Archaeology article available here)

This presentation will explore the Chacoans’ remarkable expanse and dominance across the present-day Four Corners, with replications of iconic Great House architecture, great kivas, and ritual “roads.” The speakers will present on striking exotic, ritual objects found at Pueblo Bonito, suggesting Mesoamerican impacts. Finally, the talk will suggest a wider window on the American Southwest with comparisons to parallel centers of cosmology around the ancient world.

Launched in September 2017, SAR’s Creative Thought Forum brings cutting-edge thinkers to Santa Fe to discuss topics of broad social concern. This year the series asks how traditional practices interact with innovative thinking and emerging technology. The five-part series includes five significant scholars whose approaches, research, and projects examine this intersection.

Tickets for this lecture are sold-out. If you would like to be added to the waitlist or have further questions please email Meredith Davidson at Davidson@sarsf.org

Upcoming Events

Tickets for this lecture are sold-out. If you would like to be added to the waitlist or have further questions please click here to email Meredith Davidson Creative Thought Forum lectures are free for SAR[...]

The Friday following the lecture, SAR hosts an informal salon discussion with Anna Sofaer. The salon is an opportunity for a conversation-style gathering with the speaker and provides a deeper exploration of the lecture topics.[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The School for Advanced Research joins the community in mourning the loss of Betty M. Vortman.

Michael F. Brown, SAR President, states, “Betty and her late husband, Luke, were tremendous supporters of SAR throughout their lifetimes. She was steadfast in her dedication to educational initiatives, stewardship of the Native American collections at the IARC, and the betterment of her community.”

Betty Vortman was an active member of SAR’s Board from 1988 to 1998 and continued to guide SAR more recently as an honorary board member. Her establishment of the Luke J. and Betty M. Vortman Endowment Fund at SAR, in addition to an endowment fund at the Albuquerque Community Foundation, will provide a lasting legacy for SAR’s public lecture series and Creative Thought Forum. Brown adds, “We are truly grateful for all of the impact she had on the scholar and artist community over the years and look forward to continuing to honor her life through these SAR initiatives.”

A brief obituary for Betty Vortman was published in the Albuquerque Journal on Sunday, December 2, 2018. Read the obituary online…

SAR is honored to have been a part of the Vortmans’ lives and humbled by the many ways Betty’s life and work have benefited the community.

Upcoming Events

Tickets for this lecture are sold-out. If you would like to be added to the waitlist or have further questions please click here to email Meredith Davidson Creative Thought Forum lectures are free for SAR[...]

The Friday following the lecture, SAR hosts an informal salon discussion with Anna Sofaer. The salon is an opportunity for a conversation-style gathering with the speaker and provides a deeper exploration of the lecture topics.[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The base for Gerry Quotskuyva’s Gnarly Root Project is a four-foot section of raw cottonwood root that sat in his garage drying for over a decade. During his Native artist fellowship with SAR, which runs from September to December, Quotskuyva is carving representations of Hopi culture and katsinam to make a “statement of the time”.

Large-form sculptures are new to the Sedona, AZ, artist. Quotskuyva, featured recently in an Albuquerque Journal Venue article, has worked in a variety of mediums, including ice, bronze and glass, and his katsinam are prized by collectors around the country.

Cottonwood root used as the base for Gerry Quotskuyva’s project.

As the article shares, the cottonwood root he is working with now has both a smooth side, a “gnarly” side, and multiple shoots, including one that has grown around a rock.

“There’s a lot of unique characteristics about this piece that you just do not find,” he says. “So, basically, I’m taking Mother Nature’s artwork and enhancing it in this case.”

Quotskuyva plans an intricate tableau of up to 30 mostly female figures, including a carved hand which holds the rock, a grandmother katsina known as Ha Hai-I Wuhti and a representation of the clown katsina Koshari hanging on to the edge of a shoot. The Journal quotes Quotskuyva:

Upcoming Events

Tickets for this lecture are sold-out. If you would like to be added to the waitlist or have further questions please click here to email Meredith Davidson Creative Thought Forum lectures are free for SAR[...]

The Friday following the lecture, SAR hosts an informal salon discussion with Anna Sofaer. The salon is an opportunity for a conversation-style gathering with the speaker and provides a deeper exploration of the lecture topics.[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The immersive film Voices of the Rainforest spans a day in the life of the Kaluli people in their Bosavi rainforest home in Papua New Guinea, highlighting the sounds of the animals, insects and natural world that the Kaluli believe speak of their ancestors.

With the support of SAR, Feld has now brought his work to the present by documenting the changes to both the Bosavi and the Kaluli people. Drawing from the original “sound concert” on the CD, Feld had collected images and film from his trips and his archives to produce the 90-minute feature. A recent article shared more about Feld’s work:

The concert was recorded at all height and depth layers of the forest, with sounds of some 75 birds and dozens of insects all part of the everyday experience of Bosavi people,” Feld said. “These sounds are equally ‘natural history’ and ‘cosmology’ for Bosavi people; all of them are ‘voices’ that tell time of day, season of year, forest conditions, but also signal the presence of ancestors who speak.Read the full Pasatiempo review of the film online.

Upcoming Events

Tickets for this lecture are sold-out. If you would like to be added to the waitlist or have further questions please click here to email Meredith Davidson Creative Thought Forum lectures are free for SAR[...]

The Friday following the lecture, SAR hosts an informal salon discussion with Anna Sofaer. The salon is an opportunity for a conversation-style gathering with the speaker and provides a deeper exploration of the lecture topics.[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

]]>Director of SAR’s Indian Arts Research Center Collaborates with Field Museum of Chicago on Native North American Hall Revamphttps://sarweb.org/vallo-field-press-release/
Wed, 07 Nov 2018 18:42:51 +0000https://sarweb.org/?p=14210

IARC staff to Advise Museum on New Exhibit Curation and Collaboration with Source Communities

The School for Advanced Research (SAR) is honored to announce that its Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) director Brian Vallo will play an integral role as a community partner in plans to renovate and reimagine the Native North American Hall at the iconic Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. Alaka Wali, the museum’s curator of North American anthropology explains in a recent announcement, “It’s not just a new exhibition—it represents a whole new way of thinking.” The revised approach involves working with community partners who will be advisors in the development of the exhibit.

Brian Vallo, IARC director

Field Museum staff recruited formal partners from Native American communities around the country. Two are from New Mexico: Brian Vallo, from Acoma Pueblo, who now leads the Indian Arts Research Center at SAR, and Tony Chavarria, the curator of Ethnology at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, who was also SAR’s 1995 Branigar intern. “We have been invited to participate in developing exhibit design concepts, selection of objects, narrative development, and to provide guidance on the museum’s approach to addressing culturally sensitive issues – always encouraging collaboration with appropriate tribal communities,” says Vallo. Over the next three years, Field Museum curators and exhibition staff will work with the community partner-advisors in each step of the process.

Scheduled to open in 2021, installations will completely transform the Native North American Hall’s spaces, some of which have not been updated since the 1950s. The Field sees this relationship as the development of an ongoing process rather than a single consultation with native communities. This effort will embrace a new way of collaborative exhibition development informed in part by the IARC’s Guidelines for Collaboration. The set of standards and guiding practices for working with source communities was released by the IARC in 2016. Created by Native and non-Native museum professionals, cultural leaders, and artists, the Guidelines establish a resource for museums who are working in collaboration with communities like the Field. Rather than a set of rules, the Guidelines offer principles and considerations for building successful collaborations. As the publication notes, “True collaboration does not happen immediately—it is process driven and takes time and commitment.” The Field’s long-term approach echoes this sentiment.

Michael F. Brown, President of the School for Advanced Research

“We are proud to be a leader in national efforts to implement new ways of bringing Native American communities into museum planning as full partners,” says SAR president Michael F. Brown. “Although SAR is a small institution compared to the Field Museum, our location in northern New Mexico brings us into daily contact with descendant communities, opening the door to productive conversations and collaborative stewardship of our collections. The fruits of our experience are being applied in larger institutions through the country.”

Two years after the official publication, the Guidelines are already influencing national and international conversations on how collecting institutions work with source communities in stewarding and displaying their holdings. The Guidelines were employed in recent exhibits including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York’s exhibit, Art of Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection.

Upcoming Events

Tickets for this lecture are sold-out. If you would like to be added to the waitlist or have further questions please click here to email Meredith Davidson Creative Thought Forum lectures are free for SAR[...]

The Friday following the lecture, SAR hosts an informal salon discussion with Anna Sofaer. The salon is an opportunity for a conversation-style gathering with the speaker and provides a deeper exploration of the lecture topics.[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]

The Indian Arts Research Center (IARC) houses an outstanding collection of Native American art, including pottery, jewelry, textiles and clothing, paintings, basketry, and drums. Containing more than 12,000, items, the IARC is home to works[...]